London man pleads guilty to luring 12-year-old girl in the Philippines

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Even after pleading guilty to child porn and luring charges involving a 12-year Filipino girl, Joseph Moss said he still doesn’t fully understand why what he did was wrong.

“Indian and Filipino culture is different. I was respected in Filipino culture and in all my interactions with (the victim) and (the victim’s family),” the 41-year-old London man said at his Ontario Court of Justice hearing Wednesday.

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Moss is facing a lengthy prison sentence, partially for a large collection of images and videos, but mostly for his relationship with a family in the Philippines and specifically lurid, shocking communications with their 12-year-old daughter.

In a lengthy address to Justice Jason Miller, Moss said his support of the family in 2021 “was part of my immortality project” to do “just one good thing in life.” He said he never coerced or forced the girl to do anything.

“I agree with the court that I lost myself in it,” he said, adding the family still trusts him and he continues to send them money, when he can.

What he told the author of his pre-sentence report is he wants is to leave Canada and move to the Philippines where “the family has accepted him as a son and future husband for one of their daughters.”

Moss pleaded guilty to making, distributing and possessing child pornography, plus luring and sending sexually explicit material to the girl, whose identity is protected by court order. Some of the child porn collection included images of her.

He also reluctantly pleaded guilty to breaching his bail conditions that he not be in a place where children younger than 16 might be. Moss was hanging out at a London library branch with his laptop after seeking help at a resource centre with his job search.

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Assistant Crown attorney Lisa Defoe read an agreed statement of facts summarizing the child porn and luring counts. The investigation began in the spring 2021 when Moss was detected sending several disturbing child pornography files with another user on the Facebook Messenger app.

London police, armed with a warrant, seized his cellphone, external hard drive and laptop. Defoe said investigators found 2,002 images and 496 videos that met the definition of child pornography that showed female children between age one and 14.

The images and videos were sexual, graphic and disturbing, with some of them showing adults abusing children. Also discovered were 50 images containing child pornography in written form and many web searches, including one that requested “Asian movies with child nudity in them.”

If that wasn’t troubling enough, investigators uncovered the online relationship Moss was having with the 12-year-old girl that began in March 2021 and continued until his arrest.

There were chats and screen shots on Moss’s devices where it was clear Moss knew the girl was 12. In one particular video chat described by Defoe, Moss asked the girl to take off her clothing and, when she did, he showed her he was sexually aroused.

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He also said he would show her how to be equally aroused for the camera, ending the conversation with “I love you and I want to do that with you tomorrow.” The girl replied she loved him back.

In another conversation, Moss said he wanted to “cuddle” with the girl and asked her to mail him her soiled undergarments.

There were many photos and videos of the victim’s family. Moss had been sending them food, cellphones, bedding and clothing. In one chat with the victim’s sibling, Moss reminded her of the money he sent that paid for a roof and re-built rooms in their home.

Defence lawyer Brendan Neufeld suggested Miller impose a prison sentence of four to five years. Moss, who has no criminal record, “felt an unusually close relationship with the entire family” but the relationship with the girl “grew to things it should not have gone (to).”

Neufeld produced two letters of support written by the family. The financial support began before the luring, he said.

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Since the charges were laid, Moss has lost his home, employment and all contact with his child. He lives at a homeless shelter. He has tried to get counselling and “seeks to better understand himself.”

However, Neufeld added Moss has “a genuine, philosophical disagreement” with the Canadian law. The first thing he said to Neufeld at a meeting was “I’m not a monster.”

The child porn collection – some of which Moss said he knew nothing about because he bought the hard drive second-hand – was not organized nor was their evidence of “extensive engagement with this material.”

But Defoe characterized Moss’s relationship with the family as “a predatory quid pro quo” and asked for an eight-year sentence. She pointed to the size and nature of the child porn collection and that there is “a live victim.”

“We have Mr. Moss taking advantage of financially disadvantaged family and helping them under the guise of being a ‘nice guy’ when he’s exploiting their 12-year-old daughter,” she said.

Portions of Moss’s pre-sentence report, Defoe said, indicate “he is very likely to re-offend, he does not show any insight and in fact, wishes to flee to another country that purportedly permits that type of behaviour.”

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He told the author of his report he wanted to move to where “it’s easier to live with charges relating to pedophilia.“ He admitted to finding young women “beautiful” regardless of their age and sees nothing wrong with starting a relationship with 13-year-old girls.

Moss said he sends money to the family, was recently asked to help with the birth of their latest child and large age gaps between spouses is “normal.”

The girl was “a victim” not because of him, but because of her treatment by child welfare authorities. The experience gave her nightmares and “she is fearful of this and not of me.”

He said he has sought counselling to gain perspective “because that is something that I lacked prior to this.”

“I am sorry for the activities and the actions and the mistakes that I have made. I have made big changes in my life, into who and what I am,” Moss said.

“I did have good intentions. I did want to have a family. They were my family at times. I will do and strive toward a better future.”

Miller is expected to deliver his sentencing decision on Sept. 20.

jsims@postmedia.com

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